approval, identification of possible research study participants and drug

recall support

Connectivity

- Ability to hook up to the electronic resources necessary to meet the user's needs; ability to use computers networks to link to people and resources; the unbiased transmission or transport of IP packets between two end points

Decision Support

- A single recommendation or series of recommendations implying next steps based on care protocols; the computer reminders and alerts to improve the diagnosis and care of a patient including screening for correct drug selection and dosing, medication interactions with other medications, preventive health reminders in areas such as vaccinations, health risk screening and detection and clinical guidelines for patient disease treatment

Electronic Communication

The online communication among healthcare team members, their care partners and patients including e-mail, web messaging, and an integrated health record

within and across settings, institutions and telemedicine

Electronic Health Record (EHR)

A data warehouse or repository of information regarding the health status of a

client, replacing the former paper-based medical record; it is the systematic

documentation of a client’s health status and healthcare in a secured digital

format, meaning that it can be processed, stored, transmitted and accessed by

authorized interdisciplinary professionals for the purpose of supporting

efficient, high quality healthcare across the client’s healthcare continuum;

(also known as an Electronic Medical Record): An electronic health or

medical record is a computer-based patient medical record that can be used to

collect and look up patient data by physicians or health professionals at

various locations such as doctor’s offices or hospitals. The record

includes information such as patient problems, medications, allergies,

requirements including data represented in a standardized terminology and

machine-readable format

Results Management

- The ability to manage results of all types electronically including laboratory and radiology procedure reports, both current and historical

Decision support

is the computer reminders and alerts to improve the diagnosis and care of a

patient

Electronic communication and connectivity

is the online communication among healthcare team members, their care partners and patients including e-mail, web messaging, and an integrated health record within and across settings, institutions and telemedicine

National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONCHIT)

was established to address these nuances and gaps in defining an EHR.

*The primary mission

of ONCHIT is to assure users of health information technology systems that

protect confidentiality and work with other systems without reprogramming”

EHR advantages

include simple benefits such as no longer having to interpret poor penmanship and handwritten orders to reduced turn-around-time for lab results in an emergency department and to administration of the first dose of antibiotics in an inpatient nursing unit

•The Process’ of EHR

*The first step of ownership is typically a vendor selection process.

Pre-acquisition phase should also concentrate on understanding the current state of the health information technology industry in order to identify appropriate questions and next steps in your selection process

*The second step of the selection process is to select a system based on the

organization’s current and predicted needs. The criteria should include both subjective and objective items that cover topics such as common clinical workflows, decision support, reporting, usability, technical build and maintenance of the system. Implementation planning should occur concurrently with the selection process, particularly the assessment of the scope of the work, initial sequencing of the EHR components to be implemented and resources required. The implementation plan should also account for the long term optimization of the EHR

Flexibility and Expandability

•There is not yet an electronic health record

system available

•Most healthcare organizations do not yet have

the capacity to implement and maintain systems in all care areas

•Financial and patient privacy hurdles

•The Department of Health and Human Services

recently loosened regulations

Flexibility and Expandability of Patient privacy and Health Exchanges

Patient privacy is a pivotal issue to determining how far and how easy it will be to share data across healthcare organizations.For health exchanges such as these to reach their full potential the public must be able to trust that their privacy will be protected, or else risk that patients may not share a full medical history or worse yet may not seek care, effectively making the exchange useless.